Microbiology in sustainable remediation of contaminated sites
Matthew Lee A and Mike Manefield A *A UNSW Water Research Centre, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Matt Lee initially had a lengthy career as an analytical chemist working in the areas of environmental, agricultural and forensic chemistry. Matt obtained a PhD in plant biochemistry from the University of Western Australia (2007). Following the completion of his PhD, his research direction changed to anaerobic microbiology at UNSW. Here Matt has been studying anaerobes that use toxic organohalides as their respiratory electron acceptor thus making them less toxic. These microorganisms are crucial for the remediation of organohalide-contaminated environments. |
Mike Manefield is an environmental microbiologist who teaches environmental science and engineering in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW. His primary research interest is in pollutant biodegradation. He has published over 130 articles and supervised over 45 PhD, Masters and Honours candidates to completion. He is founder of Novorem Pty Ltd (https://novorem.com.au) supporting Australian industry with environmental microbiology expertise. |
Microbiology Australia 44(1) 49-51 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA23012
Submitted: 2 February 2023 Accepted: 20 February 2023 Published: 8 March 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
The release of chemicals that have negative human or environmental health impacts has been rife around the world for a century. Approaches to contaminated site remediation have evolved over this time to address environmental contamination. Over the past 15 years there has been an increasing focus on sustainability in remediation. Bioremediation has emerged as a remediation technology of choice based on sustainability credentials. Research on pollutant biodegradation, including the discovery and characterisation of microbes responsible, underpins biological remediation applications.
Keywords: bioremediation, chemical contamination, mine sites, organohalide respiring bacteria, reductive dechlorination.
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